How Kataang Should Have Happened
by Rikki-Tivvi-Tavi
Summary: Don't have anything against Kataang, it just could have been done a little better, all things considered. Namely, considering Water Tribe customs. And Hakoda.


Katara had occasionally wondered what it would be like to share a kiss with Aang when they were both ready and willing. Kissing was supposed to be pleasurable, right? The kiss he gave her during the invasion was okay. Frankly, she couldn't blame him; at the time, it was a very real possibility that he wouldn't come back, despite her own insistance otherwise. It had taken her by surprise, true, but she hadn't been able to find it in her heart to not return it.

The kiss during the play had _not _been okay, not with her. Maybe the phrase "I'm confused" meant "Kiss me" in Air Nomad, but that was not what she'd meant. It had not been the best time, place or circumstances to even think about starting a relationship, let alone actually begin one, no matter how much she'd wanted to be with Aang, herself. Maybe if she had explained that a little more to Aang, he wouldn't have kissed her.

But that was past; the war was over, and a new era of peace had begun. Katara now felt a lot better about being in a relationship with the one she had feelings for, and she was ready to make up for lost time.

As they stood on the balcony at Iroh's teashop, holding each other in their arms and sharing their first real kiss (the other two didn't really count in Katara's mind), they realized what they truly meant to each other, and Katara even started to feel a little guilty for making Aang wait for this they way she had. Or she would have felt guilty, if she'd had a chance to.

"You've been kissing for twenty seconds."

Startled, they both leapt away from each other with a mutual barely surpressed yelp, blinking in shock at who it was that had spoken. Chief Hakoda stood less than ten feet away, dressed in formal Water Tribe attire, arms crossed and with an expression on his face that was as flat as his words had been.

"Dad?!" Katara asked dumbly.

"W-we're weren't doing anything! Honest!" Aang spluttered, inwardly cursing the Water Tribe's skill in hunting that allowed them to be so darn stealthy.

"Where did _you_ come from?!" Katara demanded. "I had no idea you were coming for the celebration!"

"So I realized," Hakoda said in a wry tone, but it was accompanied by a glare sent Aang's way that would've made Ozai himself tremble. Aang wisely decided to make scarce.

"So, I guess you two have a lot of catching up to do, I'll just be inside with the others!" he squeaked, and then bolted.

Katara looked back up at her father, immediately defiant after how he'd treated Aang. "What was that for, Dad?"

Hakoda sighed. "Don't get me wrong Katara, I like him just fine. He just...I just didn't see _this_ coming."

"Well...we've had feelings for each other for awhile, Dad," Katara admitted. "We just didn't get around to acting on them until now."

"So...he's not technically your boyfriend yet?" Hakoda questioned.

"No," Katara said flatly. Thanks to you. She didn't say the last part, but that was what her tone meant.

"Good," Hakoda said. "Because there's something I want to talk to you both about before you make it official, okay?"

"Fine," Katara mumbled, turning away and heading back inside herself.

OOOOO

Hakoda didn't really get around to talking to his daughter and the Avatar about what he wanted to talk about until the next morning, as Aang had been too out of sorts the night before from the promise Zuko had made him make to be in the right mental state to think about what Hakoda had to say about him and Katara.

After breakfast, Hakoda, Katara and Aang met each other out on the balcony again for the talk. Katara was still defiant about what she sensed was coming.

"If you say that we shouldn't be together, Dad, then we might just run away like Gran-Gran did," Katara threatened before Hakoda could say anything.

"I'm not saying that you shouldn't get together," Hakoda corrected.

"You're not?"

"But I don't think it's a good idea to do it right now," Hakoda added.

"What?" Aang looked at him with wide eyes, not liking where this was going. "But...we've waited for this! Why can't we be together now?"

"You're not a man yet, for one thing," Hakoda pointed out.

"What?" Katara and Aang both gave him blank looks.

"You haven't passed icedodging and become a man yet, Aang," Hakoda explained.

"Yes he has, Dad!" Katara defended. "He passed ice dodging with me and Sokka when Bato took us! He earned the Mark of the Trusted!"

"Number one; that was for Sokka to prove himself a man," Hakoda reminded. "Not Aang. Two, Aang wasn't even fourteen years old when he did it, so it hardly counts. Three, all Bato gave him for successfully performing his part of the ceremony was honorary membership of the Water Tribe, correct?"

"Well...But..." Katara tried to find a good argument against her father's words. "So what?" she finally asked defensively. "Why do we have to wait because of that?"

"How do you know that the feelings you have for each other are real?" Hakoda asked them.

Katara looked at her father in renewed shock. "How can you say that, Dad!" she demanded. "I love Aang and he loves me! How can you say that we don't?"

"Because I can see where this is going!" Hakoda snapped, losing his cool a bit. "I've seen it before; two youngsters develop feelings for each other - their first crush - they get together for awhile, and then break up again later once it wears off."

"It's not like that, Dad!" Katara insisted. "We're in love with each other, for real!"

"Perhaps..." Hakoda conceded. "But Aang still isn't a man."

"So?" Katara retorted.

"So, uh..." Aang spoke up, trying to placate both father and daughter. "If I pass icedodging, then could Katara and I get together?"

"Yes," Hakoda nodded. "Being an honorary member of the Southern Water Tribe, you should do things according to our customs. To make them official."

Katara huffed and crossed her arms sulkingly. "Fine. We'll wait until Aang does icedodging."

"When can I do it?" Aang asked Hakoda.

"I'll let you do it a year from now."

"WHAT?!" Katara and Aang both yelped.

"You'll be thirteen years old by then, almost fourteen, right?" Hakoda asked.

"But, a whole year?" Aang repeated.

"Why does he have to wait that long, Dad?" Katara wanted to know.

"Because it would be close to his fourteenth birthday," Hakoda shrugged. "So I'm willing to say it would be close enough."

"But Dad -," Katara tried again.

"You said that you'd wait until Aang passes icedodging, didn't you?" Hakoda cut her off, growing stern and no longer meaning the things he said as a suggestion.

"Yes, but..." Katara didn't know what to say.

"It just seems so long..." Aang admitted.

"Twelve months is twelve months," Hakoda shrugged. "I could make you wait until you're actually fourteen years old before letting you do it, Aang. Like, fourteen months? Sixteen? Even eighteen months."

"Yeah, Aang!" Sokka suddenly joined into the conversation from where he had been eavesdropping. "Not even I got to do it when I was only thirteen!"

"Sokka's right," Hakoda agreed. "Just to be fair to him if for no other reason, I _should _make you wait until your fourteenth birthday. But, I'm offering you a chance to try it early."

"Do you even know how to use a Water Tribe boat, Aang?" Sokka added. "You need to learn the ropes of sailing before you can even take a crack at icedodging, right?"

"I guess so..." Aang admitted sadly.

Katara sighed in irritation. "I don't see what difference it makes," she muttered. "If you saw how goofy a kid he was when we found him, you wouldn't make such a big deal over it now, Dad."

"Katara, I'm sorry," Hakoda apologized. "I'm the chief, and you're my daughter; I have to uphold our people's customs for our family more strictly than anyone else."

Katara just turned her back on him by then. Tears stung at her eyes. How could he! And Aang was agreeing to it! They decided on this without her input! Didn't she at least get a say in this? It wasn't waiting until Aang had passed icedodging that she didn't want to do; it was him waiting so long to do even the manhood ceremony that she didn't like. But what could she say? Her father was right; fourteen years old was the traditional age for the cerremony to be performed, it was the way the Southern Water Tribe had done it ever since it's founding. Letting Aang do it before he was fourteen years old_ was _being nice, particularly since her father had a better reason than most people would to be especially strict about how old Aang was. But...

"It's just for one year, Katara," Aang told her. "And it would give us both a chance to prepare to be together, right? And if we wait and see if we still want to be together after a year, then we'd know for sure that we really are in love with each other...right?"

"Not you too, Aang," Katara growled. Now_ he_ was suggesting that his love for her wasn't real.

"I know_ I'_m in love with you, Katara, and you know that, too," Aang assured quickly. "But, waiting would prove to everyone_ else_ that it's real."

"I know...I-I just really want to do this," Katara admitted. "Now that the war is over."

"To be honest, that's just another reason why it would be good to wait," Hakoda commented. "There's still a lot of rebuilding to be done. There's still a lot of work for you three to do, considering how involved you were in the war and how much you played a part in ending it. It's too soon to tell if this peace is going to last for long, anyway. One hundred years of war can't be done away with overnight. Is starting a relationship right now any better than doing it during the war was?"

Katara had to admit her father had a point there. "...Fine," she sighed again, defeated. "We'll wait for a year."

"Ah-ah. Aang will take icedodging in a year," her father corrected. "You won't get together until he actually passes it."

"What if he doesn't pass it in a year?" Sokka asked curiously.

"Then...he will have to wait until he's fourteen before trying it again," Hakoda decided.

"Oh, Dad, really?" Katara protested, distraught at that.

"I'm already cutting him slack by letting him take it early," Hakoda reminded her.

Katara slumped. Well, after all this was done and over with, she'd probably _really_ feel like making up for lost time, in a year.

"I hope you know there's bounderies that you can't cross until Katara is your girlfriend, Aang," Sokka said to the Avatar. "No kissing, and you can hug each other only once a day."

"Sounds good to me," Hakoda nodded in agreement.

"Okay..." Aang complied. Knowing Sokka, he probably really wanted them to hug only once a week, so a hug a day was good.

"So otherwise, keep your hands to yourself for a year," Sokka ordered. "Or you won't _have_ any hands when I'm done with you. I don't care if you are the Avatar."

"And if_ I_ get to you before Sokka does..." Hakoda added threateningly.

"Stop threatening him," Katara scolded her father and brother.

"It's our job, Katara," Sokka pointed out. "We're gonna threaten every potential boyfriend you've got. Right Dad?"

"We couldn't call ourselves men of the Water Tribe if we didn't," Hakoda agreed.

**A/N: So there ya go. That's how the last episode should have ended. This is even compatible with the The Promise comic because most of it takes place a year later anyway! Being made to wait a year before officially becoming a couple would certainly justify why Aang and Katara are all so snuggly-huggy-lovey. Making up for lost time, ya know? **

**I thought about having Sokka and Hakoda also making Aang promise to not marry Katara until she was sixteen years old (or until both of them were), but really, there's nothing that says the North and South Poles have the exact same customs. The age of adulthood in the Southern Water Tribe could very well be the age of marriage as well. Considering the freedom that's available to women of the South Pole, it's safe to say that they can get married anytime they want once they're considered an adult (fourteen years old), and that they're not just up for grabs on their sixteenth birthday whether they like it or not, like Yue apparently was on hers. I'd imagine Aang would still probably have to wait until he's technically fourteen years old before Hakoda would let him marry his daughter, though, even if he did pass icedodging at thirteen. And if that would happen close to Katara's sixteenth birthday anyway, then I guess it's possible that Hakoda would make him wait until then to marry her.**

**So yeah. See ya next time.**

**Rikki**

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